Antwon dug Chippy Nonstop's "Money Dance."

For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year's best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I'll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here.

If you've somehow been off the web all year, you might have missed San Jose rapper, Antwon. I certainly didn't – I blogged about his awesome “Helicopter” video when it first went up in February, caught him live at Public Works, handed him a Best of the Bay award this summer, and wrote a print feature on his mixtapes, all in 2012. So naturally, I begged him to contribute to the Top 10s.

At first he wrote back "wait i have no idea to do these things haha cuz i dont really remember 2012 haha," but then he sent in this:

ANTWON, RAPPER
TOP 10 2012 RAP JAMZ

1. DJ Nate, "Gucci Gogglez"

2. Chief Keef, "Ballin"
3. French Montana, "Shot Coller"
4. Chippy Nonstop, "Money Dance" DJ Two Stacks remix

5. Cash Out, "Cashin' Out"

6. Future, "Turn on the Lights"
7. Gucci Mane, "Bussin Juggs"
8. Juicy J, "Drugged Out"

9. Lil Mouse, "Don't Get Smoked"
10. Lil Reese, "Traffic" feat. Chief Keef

And for good measure, here's one of Antwon's killer vids from this year: